October 19, 2009

I’ve noticed that a couple of companies have re-branded themselves recently. A brand is an interesting thing, because when it starts – and I know PR and marketing types will cringe here – it’s very superfluous; it is ornamentation and storytelling – when a brand begins, it is window dressing. A brand only achieves greater meaning through people’s interactions with the brand, and the assocations they make with it (positive or negative). Coca Cola is obviously a very potent brand – without the associations of billions of consumers, Coke is really just a decent font, an interesting bottle shape, and a few tag lines; because of those associations, it has become the dominant consumer goods brand it is today. Coca Cola is the brand that it is not because of what it says about itself, but because of what people think and say about it.

I was therefore a bit astonished to see that Brink’s home security is re-branding itself Broadview. Really? Brink’s has been a dominant name in the security business for 150 years: when the famous robbery occurred it wasn’t called the “armored car robbery” – it was called “the Brink’s robbery,” and I’d warrant that more often than not, armored cars in movies and TV shows are Brink’s armored cars. Brink’s is iconic of security. With such an association in the consumer’s eye of Brink’s and security, it seems staggering that they would turn their backs on 150 years of hard-earned history to adopt a new identity in 2009. I have no idea what’s behind this effort – a divestiture, perhaps? And Brink’s certainly seems to have the wherewithal to flood the airwaves with advertisements announcing the change. But this is hardly the point – the point is that it doesn’t matter what Brink’s calls itself next; it only matters that it is turning its back on 150 years of the public associating “Brink’s” with “security.”

At the same time I noticed the Brink’s switch to Broadview, I also noticed that the Christian Children’s Fund had re-branded themselves as the Child Fund (www.childfund.org). While I was disappointed in Brink’s re-branding, I was glad to see this one. Unless your product or service requires a specific affiliation – religious, political, national – it doesn’t belong in your brand. The reason for this is that your brand should resonate with some common denominator in people – and no, I didn’t say lowest common denominator (with its unjustly attributed negative connotations). There has to be a common denominator to create the shared associations that become the brand’s identity. Religion, politics, nationality are never common denominators. While I was sure Christian Children’s Fund was trying to do some good in the world, I felt that their only interest, right or wrong, was helping children that happened to be christian, or that they would convert to christianity – even when the majority of children in need did not fit this categorization. I like the Child Fund – it sums it up rather nicely. It can now be about children for me, and nothing else. That’s a message I can get behind.

Your brand is as valuable as what people are saying about it. Re-branding can be a good thing, or bad. It is a good thing if people aren’t talking about you, or what they say isn’t what you want your brand to stand for. But if you have spent time establishing your brand, take great care that you don’t turn your back on people’s shared history with you – it is easy to change the letterhead and packaging; it is difficult to change people’s minds, and that’s what really counts here.

October 9, 2009

I saw this question on LinkedIn posed by Dennis Crosby, CEO of PlayDates Foundation and a marketing consultant:
“Lately I have seen a lot of media companies advertise the ability to create viral videos. Now a viral video can be defined as “A viral video is a video clip that gains widespread popularity through the process of Internet sharing, typically through email or Instant messaging, blogs and other media sharing websites.”

You see a lot of popular videos on youtube, facebook, college humor, etc, that would be defined as a viral video. I can’t say that I have seen a single one that was promoting a company or product. It seems wrong that people are saying that they can create a video that people will spread across the internet to be viewed by the masses. Is it just me? What do you think? “

This is my response:

“No – I don’t think it is possible to ‘manufacture’ a viral video (or guarantee one will go viral). By definition, something goes viral when it is presented to people who then share it with others (who may then share it further, and so on). If a company is behind a video, they can control who they present it to, but they can’t control how it is shared.

A good firm will be able to help identify what MIGHT go viral, and recognize potential viral opportunities that emerge, but to start with an intent and a guarantee that something will go viral is over-estimating the marketing organization’s capabilities and under-estimating the power of consumer choice in making something ‘viral’ (or not).”

Be wary of anyone who guarantees “viral” results – the beauty of anything viral is the very fact that it goes beyond the company’s control. You can either have the benefits of control, or the benefits of viral – you can’t have both.